Once the central panel of an altarpiece, this painting simultaneously depicts the Adoration of the Christ Child and the Annunciation to the Shepherds, shown in the upper right. To create clear spatial relationships, the artist employed overlapping planes and daring, if naive, perspectivemost evident in the projecting roof of the stable. The setting of the narrative combines the Byzantine tradition of representing the Adoration in a cave with the Western iconography of a stable. This panel may have been flanked by single panels depicting standing saints.

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Citation

"Bartolo di Fredi: The Adoration of the Shepherds [Italian] (25.120.288)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/25.120.288 (October 2006)